Chapter 70
Emmett
Reality slams me like a bike colliding on the track, my head pounding like an explosion went off next to it.
I’m afraid to open my eyes when I hear the familiar shuffle of Tristen’s feet.
Gayyyygaygaygay.
Does he know what he’s done?
My stomach rolls violently enough that I gasp against the pain.
“Bubbles, hey.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, the sound of his voice too loud.
“What did you do?”
Not waiting for an answer, not really expecting one, I roll and tuck my knees beneath me, my head buried in the mattress. Palming my temples feels better, until it doesn’t.
“You need to eat, baby. It’s been days.”
Days?
DAYS?!
I shoot up so fast, the room spins. My mouth goes dry.
“Gonna puke.”
I heave, the echo of my retching surrounding my head, but nothing comes up.
Nothing but yellow acid that burns its way through my gut and into the bucket propped in front of my face.
“Days?” I choke out, fighting another wave of nausea back enough to catch a glimpse of Tristen’s thigh curled next to me.
“I … I’m so sorry, Emmett. I tried to wake you up but you just … wouldn’t.” The crack on his voice hurts, but the pain of realization hurts worse.
Ripping my gaze away from the swirls of yellow in the bucket, I find tears gathered in Tristen’s eyes.
But behind where he’s perched on the edge of my bed?
A suit.
Hanging from the door in black and white.
“I missed her funeral.”
An ache like none I’ve ever felt before claims me, pulling me back down to the mattress with a sob so violent, it’s silent.
Not even my lungs dare to move.
My rolling stomach takes up home in my throat, and my eyes leak.
And leak.
Tristen’s doesn’t even try to console me. He’s just there, on standby, as my world keeps falling apart in front of him.
I hate him for it.
Just as much as I love him for it.
“Please,” I finally whimper, though I have no idea what I’m asking for. “Please.”
Give me peace.
Reprieve.
Give me back the woman I needed to fucking save me.
The one from the park who told me it was okay to sit with a strange boy. That after flying off the swing-set, he might need a friend.
The one who called me Emmy, before it was a ruined name.
The one who loved me. Needed me. Wanted me.
“Please!” I beg the heavens. The universe the gods that frown down on me. Anyone willing to fucking listen.
Except, no matter how much I cry, no one answers. Nothing changes.
My mom is still dead. Buried.
Without me.
Something hot and ugly blooms inside my chest, leaving a bitter taste on my tongue, and a growl ripping from my throat.
I have no idea what’s in my grip when I yank, but it rips with a satisfying shred. I grab another—chunks of blanket, the corner of the already torn sheet, the mattress. All of it falls victim to the war raging in me.
Not even Tristen is in the room when I stand on the destroyed bed and start yanking the drawers from the dresser.
“Piece of shit,” I scream and slam it closed, “was always too fucking big.” Wood splinters and I do it again with another. My clothes pop out as I shake it, the minimal fabric falling to the floor.
I shred them, too.
There’s not a damn thing left that hasn’t been tainted in this room.
Not a thing that doesn’t hold some kind of nightmare woven into it. Left on it. Built by it.
I hear Tristen’s voice calling for me as I storm by, past the room my mother died in while I slept next to her, and out the door.
Two stomps onto the janky ass porch and I freeze.
“You better not be in there tearing up what’s mine, boy.”
My throat closes up, all the fight leaving me as the voice of my nightmares proves what my eyes are seeing.
“I-I-I—”
“Always were a stuttering little bitch. See that hasn’t changed one bit.”
I whimper, shrinking back, and suddenly I’m a little kid all over again. Too young to know what to do in the face of his words. Too small to fight back as he steps up onto the porch.
Too weak to be myself.
Too gay to be normal.
Too queer to not take back the urges I cause in him.
“Excuse the fuck outta you.”
The growled words accompany a thunderous step and a strong back stepping into my view as Tristen puts himself between me and my stepdad.
“Who do you think you’re talking to? And why the fuck are you in my house?”
Tristen’s presence seems to grow even more than it already was, his whole body taking up my field of view. The porch suddenly feels too small to fit him.
“I’m talking to a piece of shit, that’s who.”
Oh no.
“Tristen, don’t,” I beg quietly.
Don’t let him touch you.
It’s too small. Too quiet to be heard over the slurs my stepdad starts spitting about me.
It hurts to hear the awful things he says, just as much as it did then. Even worse that he’s saying them in front of Tristen.
“I know,” I murmur when he throws out how gay I am. “I know,” I say when he talks about me being queer. “I know!” I finally yell when he spills how in love with a boy that I’d just met I was.
I was just a kid.
“Don’t you dare yell at me,” Eric snarls, his words floating around Tristen’s vibrating frame.
Hands that have held me gingerly clench and unclench.
Arms that have carried me flex, tightening the already stiff muscles held by Tristen’s sides.
And the man that has cried for me, with me, now trembles with barely restrained rage.
“Emmy, get this pretentious fuck off my porch. What kind of bitch puts rings through his nose?”
Something inside me snaps and I scream.
“I like the rings in his nose!”
Gone is the kid I used to be. The frail boy. The easily manipulated simpleton.
“And fuck you for dragging him into this.”
I fly around Tristen on a full sprint that slams to a halt but that doesn’t stop me from flailing. Clawing at air in Eric’s direction who’s conveniently stepped back off the porch.
“Get the fuck off my property,” he snarls.
“Fuck. You.”
Swinging does me no good when he steps back more, the arm around my aching ribs too tight to wriggle loose from.
“Fuck me?” Eric sneers and reaches for his belt buckle. I freeze all over again, the scars on my back sting like they’re freshly broken open reminders. Like even my skin holds the memories of Eric’s wrath and knows better. “I’ll show—”
“Take one more fucking step, I dare you. Or do you not remember last time you met me?”
The snarl from Tristen, and the way he angles me behind him, has the hair rising on the back of my neck.
But just as the fear tickles the edge of my subconscious, so does the anger. The rage. The fucking pain.
He did this.
He did this.
“You killed her,” I growl passed the heart in my throat and dig my nails into the harness of Tristen’s arm. “You killed her.”
Eric steps back slowly. Menacingly. An evil smirk taped to his pockmarked face.
“You better be gone when I get back, Emmy. Or that ass is finally mine.”
My stomach rolls at the threat, bile burning the back of my throat, and I step back. I want it to end. I want him gone.
“You can have it. All of it.” That has the man stopping mid step into his truck, one worn-down boot still on the dirt-caked pavement.
And I just … never want to be on the same grounds as him ever again.
Not the same house, or property, or town.
I never want to see his face or feel his dark presence hovering over me.
“The house, the money, anything left. It’s yours as long as you leave me alone. ”
“Emmett, no. You don’t have to do that,” Tristen murmurs, his softened gaze burrowing into me.
The way that Eric’s eyes flip to his back when he turns to me with concern weighing down his brows, has my skin crawling.
“I don’t wanna stay here. I don’t wanna see him again. Please don’t make me—”
“Okay, okay. We’ll figure it out, bubs.”
My eyes burn when he pinches my sleeve quickly, letting me know he’s with me without touching me, and I swallow hard.
It’s not until I state it again, and the slam of the truck door echoes up the neglected lawn, that he finally leaves and the tiniest hint of relief settles in my stomach.